In
Goethes Faust, an aging doctor sells
his soul to the devil in exchange for renewed youth. No doubt there were times
when the director, conductor, singers, technicians, and musicians involved
in the IU Opera Theater production of Gounods demanding Faust might
have offered up their souls to Mephistopheles, too, in exchange for a smooth
ride from first rehearsal to closing night.

But instead, the hundreds of
people who work at a level the Chicago Tribune calls a consistently
professional standard of which any opera house in the world could be proud
take a more mortal path to perfection: they rely on hard work.

Since it began in 1948, IU
Opera Theater has presented more than 1,000 performances of 250 operas.
Premieres include the collegiate premiere of Parsifal in 1949, the
1981 American premiere (in the Metropolitan Opera House) of Bohuslav Martinus
The Greek Passion, and the Midwest premiere by an academic institution
of John Adamss Nixon in China in 1995.

IU Opera Theater stages the
standard Mozart fourThe Marriage of Figaro, Così fan
Tutte, Don Giovanni, and The Magic Flutewith great
aplomb. Indeed, few of the standard operas are not in the theaters repertoire,
but it also offers less-often performed productions such as Mozarts
Idomeneo. In fact, IU Opera Theater regularly stages productions few student
companies would try: Faust in French, Rigoletto in Italian, or challenging
modern works such as Bolcoms McTeague and Coriglianos Ghost
of Versailles.

IU
seasons feature six productions each academic year; three in the fall and
three in the spring. A committee of more than twenty people from all areas
of opera production choose the works. The season is planned eighteen to twenty-four
months in advance. The dean of the School of Music, who serves as general
manager of IU Opera Theater, heads the committee.

In choosing a season, the committee
strives to strike the right balance between operas that are light and comic
and those that are more substantive. They also look to feature a variety of
periods. Costly productions (for which new sets and new costumes will have
to be constructed) must be balanced against less expensive ones.

IU Opera Theater personnel must
also consider the voices available for a season in the planning stages. Do
they have someone suited for the lead in Susannah or Faust,
for instance?

Ask that question about almost
any opera, and the answer is yes. U.S. News & World Report ranks
IUs masters program in voice No. 1 in the country. School of Music
graduates include Sylvia McNair, Timothy Noble, Kevin Langan, Sally Wolf,
William Burden, and the late Bruce Hubbard. The Metropolitan Opera roster
includes eighteen IU graduates this season alone.

IU School of Music graduate
Sylvia McNair has won two Grammy Awards and regularly performs with opera
hourses throughout Europe and the United States.Photo courtesy IU School of Music

IU Opera Theater benefits from
a large talent pool. The School of Music has some 1,600 studentsamong
them, there are nearly 500 voice majors. Auditions for opera roles are held
in both the spring and the fall. Fall auditions usually draw about 200 candidates,
while spring auditions attract around 150 people.

At most places, they get
about twenty to thirty. Thats why we can do what we do, Liotta
says.

Of course, opera involves more
than just vocal skills. Students at IU take courses in postural alignment,
drama, and advanced opera skills. In the latter course, guest directors such
as Herbert Kellner and Tito Capobianco teach four-week intensive sessions.
In January, Dale Girard, guest director for Faust, brought an army
of swords to Bloomington to teach stage combat.

A large number of dancers are
also involved in IU Opera Theater production. In the spring 2000 semester,
dancers participated in Rigoletto and Faust, for instance. Most
of the opera in the nineteenth century has ballet in it, Liotta explains.

In some operas, ballet dancers
will assume small roles. In others, there is a full-scale collaboration between
voice and dance. While singers and dancers are being chosen, set, costume,
and lighting technicians are already at work. These
crews work on their own schedules. So while the scene shop works its way through
pieces for one opera, the costume shop may be finished with that opera and
working on clothing for the next one. Somehow, it all comes together at the
right time.

To save money and time, IU Opera
Theater usually creates sets and costumes for just two or three new productions
in a season. The sets for the February production of Faust, for instance,
had been used before, and the costumes were rented. But that doesnt
mean the set and costume crews got time off. Each person in Faust had
to be measured for his or her costume so the rental company, based in Toronto,
knew what sizes to send to Bloomington. In December, the IU Opera Theater
costume crew took some twenty measurements of each cast member. Those measurements
were mailed off and once the costumes arrived in early January, costumers
checked the fit and made minor modifications on each item.

Over at the scene shop, crew
members brought the Faust set out of storage in mid-November. It could
not go on stage until the semester break however, because of the early December
Nutcracker production in the Musical Arts Center. As soon as crews
unpacked the Faust set, they began checking it for damage. Repairs
to the styrofoam and wood pieces and touch-ups to the paint are standard set
repairs. Once the set was on stage, more adjustments are made.

The lighting design, created
by a student, was in the works well before the set was unpacked. An average
week during the heart of the academic year finds IU Opera Theater rehearsing
two upcoming operas while another has just ended. Its a dizzying pace,
but surprisingly, few things go missing.

Once we were ready to
begin rehearsals, and there was no piano in the pit, Liotta recalls.
Everyone thought someone else had taken care of it. That happens very
rarely. Mercifully, we have few major crises.

It is long-standing tradition
at IU to double-cast the operas (one cast is called Cream, the other Crimson)
and while that provides more opportunities for more students, it also doubles
the number of logistical arrangements that must be made. Liotta, who has worked
professionally at Chicagos Lyric Opera, Houston Grand Opera, and Santa
Fe Opera, among others, says managing two casts at once is a special technique.
You either learn how to do it, or you dont survive, he says.

Once shows are cast, singers
start practicing their parts on their own, with their individual teachers,
and with the Opera Theaters on-staff coaches. A team of one faculty
coach and two graduate coaches works on each opera.

Singers generally start
working as quickly as they can, because they have huge amounts to learn,
Liotta explains. Depending on what time of the year their show opens, singers
will have a few weeks or several months to prepare their roles. Fall auditions
are held during the first week of classes in September. Auditions for the
summer productions and the following years opening fall productions
are held during the spring semester. So, for instance, singers in Susannah,
which ran in November, learned of their roles in September while singers in
this seasons final production, Candide, had much of the spring
semester to polish their parts. Meanwhile, musicians are learning their parts,
working with their teachers and practicing in ensembles.

IUBs
opera company functions at the highest professional level. Yet, IU is a learning
environment, and there are differences between producing opera at the Met
and producing it on a university campus.

At IU Opera Theater, Liotta
says, everyone is doing it for the best reasons. Teachers, coaches,
conductors, and directors receive their reward in seeing students progress.
The ultimate validation is when you turn around and see people having
careers or passing on knowledge, and you know you had a part in making them
better practitioners, Liotta says.

That is, if IU Opera Theater
personnel have time to keep track of all their former students. Often, after
an opera closes, there is only one day until rehearsals for the next opera
begin. Still, opera personnel do take time to count the receipts and catalogue
audience comments. Because IU Opera Theater is a nonprofit enterprise, it
is not required to make money. Still, those involved in the productions work
hard to make the season break even financially.

Teaching people is an
expensive luxury, Liotta says. No one at the professional level
is hired to learn the work. They dont hire amateurs. But its part
of our mission.

Perhaps because IU Opera Theater
is staged in a university setting, audiences feel quite comfortable offering
regular feedback about the performances.

For the most part, they
are very supportive, Liotta says of IU opera patrons. Every once
in a while, you hear: What were you thinking when you chose this?
But they are generally supportive of new things. It depends on what you try.

Whether audiences loved the
opera or not, once the production has closed, it is time to tackle the next
one. And so it goes, through six operas each year. The 200001 season
ends with Candidejust as the 200102
season is announced.